How to Use My TV as a Monitor

Use a TV as a monitor by making sure the computer has a good video card, determining whether a DDI or S-Video cable is required and connecting the appropriate cable between the computer output to the television input. Get better picture quality by using DDI to HDMI inputs on a television with advice from a computer specialist in this free video on connecting computers to TVs.

Comments

Video Transcript

Hi, I'm Gary Malec, and in this video I'm going to show you how to use your TV as a monitor. Now, there's going to be a couple ways you can hook it up, and you're going to have to have the right video card, because you can't just plug your, you know, your TV into your computer and use it as a monitor, especially if it's not a high definition TV because it's just not going to look right. Now, I just so happen to have a good video card in this computer here, so it has DDI outputs and S-video outputs. Now, S-video is a cable like this, and most most televisions these days will have an S-video input. So, you can run it out from your computer and into the back of your television, or if you have a good video card such as the one in this computer with DDI outputs you get a cable like this that has DDI on one end and HDMI on the other. Now, this is preferably the best because you'll get the best resolution. And still, it's not, I would never recommend to use your monitor, your TV as a monitor because it's just not going to look as good as a real monitor, but if you want to watch movies or play some games, or show pictures, or videos you made, you know, it works, so here we go. So, the first thing I'm going to do is the S-video cable, and here in the back of my computer I have a plug for it so I'm just going to go right in just like that. And again, in the front of my television here I have a plug, so I'm just going to go right on in, and now it's hooked up. And now I'm just going to turn my computer on and hope it works. And as you can see here now my television is acting as a computer monitor and booting my computer, S-video. Now, we'll try it with the HDMI and see how it looks. Now, we're going to take the DDI to HDMI and give that a whirl, so you plug it in here. This is the number one. There's two ports here. I'm, goin' in number one. Screw it in nice and tight and secure, and then take the HDMI and hook it into the back of your television which I'm going to do. You can pause it. Now, we have the computer hooked up through the HDMI port which will give you a little better resolution. It'll probably run at a full 1080 on this high-def television, and look better than the S-video. See, you can already see there's a lot less lines so I don't know if you can through the camera. A lot less lines, and it's in a perfect format. And there you have it, HDMI. Full high-def using your television as a monitor. If I were to recommend any way this would definitely be the best way to do it.